jft and I are currently in Bhuj, awaiting the Kutch Express, which will take us to Ahmedabad, where we take another train to Jalgoan, to begin the south Indian portion of our adventure.
We headed to this city, the major one of the Kutch region of Gujarat, after we parted ways today with our lovely Nu Tech Farm family. We do not know for certain when we will cross paths with any of them again, but we are hopeful we will return one day to renew our friendship, and perhaps introduce our future children to this sometimes dusty, sometimes very wet, wild west and wonderful place we have called home for five weeks of our time in India.
I am a mix of feelings, most of which I am aware of and observing with equanimity (!), as my 10-day Vipassana meditation course has taught me (more about this later in post dedicated to my experience learning this ancient technique.
I feel privileged to have encountered Vijay Shah, the farm owner, and the lovely family we lived with on the farm and the farm workers we worked with, all who seem follow an ebb and flow, which follows the seasons and the slow beat of life in Kutch. I have learned much about organic farming, but even more about the people here, even if there are daily communication conundrums due to the language barrier. But mostly we have taken this in stride, and must simply laugh at what does manage to come out in broken English. I can certainly say people are people — sometimes enthralling, sometimes frustrating — no matter where you are.
I couldn’t help paying hommage to this broken English with the title of this post. Certainly you must have thought this an odd way to express myself in English. I couldn’t resist, after I heard how the word “expire” was used by people we spent so much time with on the farm. And I mean no disrespect; indeed, I appreciate everything everyone did here to communicate with us. Hearing how “expire” and other expressions are used by people who only know a bit of English, reminds me how complex English is, how difficult it can be to learn another language, and in turn, funny I must sound when I try to speak a foreign language, like Kutchie.
jft explained that during my time away in silent meditation, one of the two farm goats died. He at first saw the goat lying down on the ground — an unusual postion for a goat which you can either standing or resting on the ground with its legs tucked under its body, much like the cows here. The goat’s position was clarified when Hari, the farm manager announced, “Goat expire.”
Oh India, this made me laugh when I heard it! But I thought perhaps it was an isolated incident — something simply Hari says. However, yesterday we encountered Vesubah, one of the farm workers in Rayan, the village near the farm. jft explained we would be leaving today, and asked Wasuba if Atul, the worker with which jft seems to share the strongest bond, would be returning to work after several recent holidays in the region. Wasuba explained that Atul had gone to Gandhidham, because as he put it “Atul uncle expire.”
I held it together and did not laugh when I heard this. We of course were quite sorry to hear about Atul’s loss, and jft even sorrier he would not see Atul again before we left the farm today.
It occurred to both jft and me, from a we-are-linguistic-nerds perspective that in Kutchie the word for “died” or “dead” perhaps must literally mean “expire” in English. It’s hard to say for sure without some in depth study, made more difficult by the fact that Kutchie is not a written language, although it does share some portions in common with Gujarati.
Certainly our time in Kutch has not died — it has literally expired, but ah, hearing how our Kutchie friends used it, makes me think twice now about the meaning of each English word I use.
There are so many other linguistic and cultural things to share, including more photos of our latest visit to the farm, all of which will bubble to the surface as we find some moments to take ourselves away from our final eight weeks in breathtaking India.
